Hogen - Making Sense of Japanese Dialects

This was originally posted in 2011. I have been to Okinawa almost ten times since.

During my most recent trip to Okinawa, I was at long last able to clear up a number of things regarding the local dialect/language that had been confusing me. And will be writing about those findings in coming posts.

As you might suspect, I listen to a lot of music from Okinawa and have even written about the song Chinsagu nu Hana in another post. The song is sung in a dialect known as Uchinā Yamato-guchi (ウチナーヤマトグチ, lit. “Okinawa- Japanese Language”), the Japanese language as it is spoken in Okinawa with the local accent and words and phrases from both the Ryūkyū language and to some degree American English. The word Uchinā, by the way, is how “Okinawa” is pronounced by Okinawans (O→U ki→chi na→na wa→a) and one of the first things I was happy to finally clarify. Ask your average Tarõ what Uchinā means and he’ll either say that he’s never heard of it or venture a guess that it means “us”, “our” or “my”, as in the standard Japanese phrase uchi no (うちの).

The Ryūkyū language, on the other hand, belongs to a subgroup of languages called the Japonic languages. It can be broken down further into six major dialects, which are generally unintelligible to each other. The following, nicked from Wikipedia, shows how to say “Thank you” and “Welcome” in each of these languages:

Thank you

Standard Japanese

Arigatō

Amami

Arigatesama ryoota

Kunigami

Mihediro

Okinawan/Uchinâ-guchi

Nifeedeebiru

Miyako

Tandigaatandi

Yaeyama

Miifaiyuu

Yonaguni

Fugarasa

Welcome!

Standard Japanese

Yōkoso

Amami

Imoorii

Kunigami

Ugamiyabura

Okinawan/Uchinâ-guchi

Mensooree

Miyako

Nmyaachi

Yaeyama

Ooritoori

Yonaguni

Wari

Most of these languages are on the verge of extinction thanks to the same sort of misguided integration policies used in France (Occitan, Breten) and Britain (Welsh), which suppressed their use. Only the Okinawan language (Uchinā-guchi) which is spoken in the southern part of the Okinawan mainland and was the official language of the Ryūkyū Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin(1477–1526) still counts a sizeable number of people (0.9 million) among its speakers.

The following list of Okinawan proverbs were found here. As you can see there is very little, if any, similarity with standard Japanese.

Ataishi turu atairu. - We get along well with those we can get along with well.

Achinee ya tankaa mankaa. - Business is a two-way street.

Aramun jooguu ya duu ganjuu. - One who eats plain food is healthy.

Ichariba choodee. - Once we meet and talk, we are brothers and sisters.